The young boy, Tommy, that had vacated the contents of his over-full stomach into his lap earlier, turned his face from the scary man in front of him to the scary place that he had just been. The Rides.

The Rides… and, it was guessed, the Ridemaster… were encased in, and perhaps made of, a metallic webbing that looked like every cyberpunk movie ever made had vomited up its nightmares right on that spot. Every one except for the roller coaster. It was in the same draconic shape as when it had been… created? born? But now, it was a hulking, wooden, rattling beast. Its only metal pieces were rusted and conveyed every sense of being primitive.

They all worked. The roller coaster, the ferris wheel, the Tilt-O-Whirl, they all worked. One little boy had even vomited on the Ferris Wheel. Tommy. Neither Tommy nor his mother noticed the little metal spiders that were riding on his clothing like burrs. Inside the Rides, conduits of electricity, light, and thought flared, illuminating many of the tunnel-like areas of the Rides in an eerie glow. They resonated with a thought. “Little bastard.”

Here, Dragon was so free. He admired the craftsmanship of the clothes he had found himself in when he woke up. His trench coat and armor were stylized and adorned with runes in a flaring font that bordered on the remake of Lost in Space. His Warhammer was missing, but he sensed it somewhere amidst the technology that was surrounding him. He was connected to the Rides central annex by a cranial implant – a plug drilled directly into his brainpan. From here, his spiders were his eyes and his ears. They hadn’t spread over the Carnival very much, as the dust and general nastiness that made up the place, and the humans that populated it, would be detrimental to their sensitive equipment.

The roller coaster, though. That was the bitch of the situation. People were thrilled at his Rides. His re-made old ones, and his new VR Battle Mech Theater, and his new Perfect You ride. Each one was scaring the riders until they puked. “Little bastard.” And they loved every second. But the coaster was *killing* his spiders. It resisted every attempt he and the Annex made at upgrading it. It was far too much like that irrational, emotional, physically reliant creature that he had finally caged. He thought about it, and the hallways of the Rides pulsed with thought again.

“I’m not sure you exist.”

The coaster seemed to bristle, rattling in an alarming fashion. Somehow…. somehow it replied, in a snarling, lizard-like voice.

“I will be rid of you.”

The spiders that held the Rides together scuttled about in an alarming fashion as laughter echoed through the fiber, the copper, and the light.

Lightning cracked and thunder boomed. Every time the thunder would boom, Ania swore she could hear screams, not blood curdling… more like… eh. Who can describe it? Ania couldn’t even tell if it was man or woman. Ania just knew that someone was having fun or getting hurt.

Another arc of lightning split the night’s sky, and Dragon bellowed at it amidst the sternum-vibrating bass of the thunder. He was purely himself, for the first time in his memory. There was no confusion, no buzzing of human thought, no conscience. Simple and pure, this was the way he had always desired to be.

So why did it hurt so much?

Bah, that didn’t matter. He had kept himself to the rides for the last couple of days, as everything outside of it smelled of machine-magic. Not here, not in his lair. The rides were primal and made of the earth. The roller coaster was the only exception, and Dragon hissed at it in disgust. That thing reminded him of what he had shed, like a too-tight skin.

He bared his sharp, pointed teeth at the thing and raised his war hammer high. Lightning crashed again, and he roared as a voice whispered to him in the thunder.

“I’m not so sure you exist.”